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• Indict Amazon for murder!
• What right does the Supreme Court have to rule?
• Who gets to claim self-defense?
• Stop Kellogg’s strikebreaking!
• John Deere strike victory is a win for all workers
• Labor leader calls for action to free Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Organizers against police crimes meet
• Hands off Donbass, Belarus and Russia
• Why Cuba does not have an anti-vaccine movement
• Want to know how to beat COVID? Look at China
• Protest U.S. sanctions Ethiopia and Eritrea
• Destruction of the Soviet Union: a crime without statute of limitations
• Protecting the waters of Moanalua, Hawai’i
• Corrupción, privatización y colonialismo
• Corruption, privatization & colonialism

The death of six workers at an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, during a Dec. 10 tornado didn’t have to happen. Workers died because Jeff Bezos is too cheap to build safe buildings. 

The Amazon founder has a $202 billion fortune. A day after the Edwardsville tragedy Bezos had one of his Blue Origin rockets lift off the launch pad. 

Bezos is spending a billion dollars a year on his space toys. Workers’ safety is another matter. 

The Edwardsville facility, located 25 miles northeast of St. Louis, was built in a tornado alley. Between 1991 and 2011 four storms roared through the area with speeds of at least 136 mph. The Dec. 10 tornado was just as severe.

Like many warehouses — as well as Walmart, Home Depot and Target stores — the big box buildings are fabricated using “tilt-up wall construction” to save money. Concrete panels weighing dozens of tons are held together by the roof. 

But if the roof is blown away the panels will fall and crush anyone underneath. That’s what happened in 2014 to a Home Depot in Joplin, Missouri, where eight people were killed. The same thing occurred in Edwardsville.

The only emergency shelter available to workers in the Amazon warehouse were the bathrooms. Concrete blocks fell in one of them and crushed a worker to death. The warehouse employees received virtually no emergency training.

Larry Virden, one of the workers who died, texted his partner that “Amazon won’t let us leave.” He left behind four children. 

Lack of concern for workers’ health and safety is a company tradition. Fifteen workers collapsed during a 2011 heat wave at an Amazon warehouse in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, 11 miles from Allentown. 

The company knew of the health dangers but refused to reduce the line speed. Amazon instead parked ambulances outside the door.

The Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama ― where Bezos spent millions to stop a union organizing drive ― is another potential deathtrap. It too sits in a tornado alley.

Candle factory deathtrap

On the same day that six workers died in Edwardsville, another tornado killed eight workers in Mayfield, Kentucky. They made candles at the Mayfield Consumer Products factory. 

Some of the workers who were rescued were found buried alive. Survivors are furious that the company didn’t cancel the evening shift despite warnings that tornadoes were likely to strike the area.

Starting wage at this sweatshop located in Western Kentucky is $8 per hour with forced overtime. Workers are hired for 10-hour and 12-hour shifts. 

Many of the workers are immigrants. Seven employees on the evening shift were prisoners from the local jail.

Survivors filed a class-action lawsuit because they were threatened with firing if they left work early because the tornados were coming. 

Factory worker Elijah Johnson told CNN that he was told by a foreman that he would be fired if he left.

“I said, ‘Man, you’re going to refuse to let us leave, even if the weather is this bad and the tornado’s not here yet?,” recounted Mr. Johnson. “He was like, ‘If you want to decide to leave, if you want to leave, you can leave, but you’re going to be terminated. You’re going to be fired.’ “ 

Behind the death of eight workers at the Mayfield factory are chain stores like Bath and Body Works that purchase the candles. To these criminals the Christmas rush is more important than human lives.

Chairman emeritus of Bath and Body Works is the billionaire Leslie Wexner, who was a close associate of the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Capitalism = death

To capitalists profits come first before safety. In 1869, 110 mostly Irish coal miners were burned alive at the Avon Mine in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. The owners refused to build a second entrance that would have allowed the miners to escape.

In 1911, Italian and Jewish young women jumped to their deaths at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory rather than be burned alive. One hundred forty-six workers were killed because the owners locked the doors in the building at Greene Street and Washington Place in Manhattan. 

In the early 1930s, hundreds of mainly Black workers were killed by silicon dust in building the Hawks Nest tunnel for Union Carbide in West Virginia. Fifty years later a leak at Union Carbide’s pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, killed as many as 8,000 people.

In 1991, 25 workers choked to death in a Hamlet, North Carolina, chicken plant whose owner locked the doors.

Capitalist global supply chains kill more workers. In 2013, some 1,134 workers died when their garment sweatshop collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh. That’s eight times the number of workers who were killed at Triangle Shirtwaist.

None of these disasters had to happen. They were all the result of capitalist greed. 

The best way to remember those who were killed in the recent tornadoes is to organize. If the Amazon and Mayfield workers had a union to protect them, they could have walked off the job to save their lives.

The world is now nearing the end of the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States has the highest death toll in the world – 823,390 as of Dec. 16. 

With all the scientific resources available, and billions of dollars in the vaults of the richest capitalist class in history, the U.S. should have been able to succeed in a vaccination campaign and treat everyone before they were infected. Vaccines should have made their way throughout the world, including the global south where the challenges of poverty magnify the horrors of the pandemic. 

Instead, the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies have taken their cue from the Trump administration and continued apace with a manufactured narrative that slanders and blames China for the pandemic. Their goal is to cover up the global calamity created by the giant multinational corporations they serve and turn people’s attention away from the incredible success of the Chinese socialist public health system in fighting the pandemic. 

An internet search for death statistics or other COVID related metrics outside China is heartbreaking. India lost 476,000 people, in Brazil 617,000 people died, and Mexico suffered 297,000 COVID fatalities. The list of countries that have suffered staggering loss and grief is a long one. Those countries that have been brutalized by imperialism for more than a century have been ravaged, as have oppressed and impoverished communities within the U.S. The pandemic has revealed the entrenched racism and neglect of people of color within U.S. borders, while vaccine nationalism has exposed the genocidal treatment of the global south. 

To date since the beginning of the pandemic, only 4,849 COVID deaths have occurred in China. Since April 24, only three people have died. That is astounding. As of this writing there have been 265,713,467 cases and 5,260,888 deaths from COVID-19 worldwide. 

China’s success was due in part to the great deal of research and experience that followed the outbreaks of the SARS and MERS epidemics. But even more, it is the reality of the Communist Party of China being in the leadership instead of a government run exclusively by and for a tiny handful of billionaires.

At the beginning of the outbreak in February and March of 2020, before COVID-19 became a pandemic, the CPC moved decisively and locked down the city of Wuhan, which has a population of 11 million people. The scale of the quarantine was unprecedented and set the tone for how the CPC and the Chinese people have carried out their incredible “People’s War” ever since.

The Western press often describes it as “authoritarian” and “ruthless.” Human Rights Watch attacked it as a violation of freedom. The campaign was and is, in fact, extraordinarily humanitarian, incredibly efficient and a technological marvel. 

Drones for health, not war

The world’s first major deployment of drones — other than their use by the imperialist U.S. military to murder thousands of people in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere — was launched in Wuhan. Drones and robots were deployed that could detect people with fevers while hovering, remotely disinfect hospitals, and make announcements to ensure quarantine restrictions were followed. 

Robots delivered food and supplies to people’s doorsteps. No one lost pay or lost their job. 

Two hospitals were literally constructed in a matter of days and other pre-existing buildings were modified and put to use for treatment of COVID patients. Here again, drones hovered over the construction sites to provide light so that construction crews could work 24-hours-a-day. 

Thousands of medical volunteers traveled from faraway areas of China to help in Wuhan and other places as the disease spread. Videos were produced and spread on social media to update the population about safety measures and how to get help. Scientists mapped the genome of the virus and shared it with the world within 11 days.

After more than two months of sharply increased cases and more than 3,000 deaths, the casualty numbers diminished. But no one in China dropped their guard in the interest of reopening the economy as happened with successive waves of the outbreak in the U.S. Sporadic outbreaks saw more lockdowns – none at the same scale as that in Wuhan, but always announced quickly when there was an uptick in cases. 

The lockdowns were a great economic sacrifice. But there were no demonstrations demanding the lockdowns end as there were in major capitalist countries. The Chinese leadership made sure everyone would receive income, there were absolutely no evictions, and there were no job losses.

The 5,000-room Guangzhou International Health Station

The CPC still maintains a goal of zero COVID infections as the Omicron variant is surging in many parts of the world. A 5,000-room quarantine facility in Guangzhou, equipped with 5G communication technology and a robot delivery system for food and other essentials, was finished last month. 

The housing is spread over an area as big as 46 soccer fields and is the first in the plans for a chain of similar facilities to house people traveling from abroad. The entire complex was built in less than three months, a feat that would be astonishing anywhere else. Considering the construction of the hospitals in just days at the beginning of the pandemic, it is not surprising.

China’s determined campaign to beat the pandemic is international in scope. In spite of the astonishing success of this People’s War, Chinese leaders, researchers, virologists and epidemiologists know that defeating a pandemic requires complete global cooperation.

When: Saturday Dec 18th at 12 Noon
Where: 6430 W. Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles

Join the international effort to free Ruchell Magee, a political prisoner who has spent 58 years unjustly imprisoned and who activists and all peoples fighting for justice demand be released immediately.

This event is organized by the Coalition to Free Ruchell Magee.

U.S. hands off Korea!
Friday, December 17, 12 p.m.
Federal Building, 11000 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

Emergency demonstration condemning Biden’s sanctions on North Korea in front of the Federal Building in Los Angeles on December 17th at 12pm.
We hope many of you will attend.

Increasingly, large sectors of the European population, and in the US to a lesser extent, openly express their distrust towards their government’s policies to combat COVID-19. The reaction of the traditional policy is one of panic and is characterized by paternalism and repression: general obligation to vaccinate and restricting freedom of movement. This is not the way to build support among the population. This will require, at the very least, listening to the fears and concerns of the unvaccinated. But there are other elements at play as well. The comparison with Cuba is interesting.

Distrust in the government

Many unvaccinated people rightly doubt the competence and/or good faith of their governments that now want to vaccinate everyone as soon as possible. It is not so incomprehensible.

European countries have been improvising since March 2020. There is no uniformity or logic in policies to attack the COVID-19 pandemic. With similar contagion rates the measures differ greatly from one country to another.

In Belgium, where I live, as in other countries in Europe, the improvisation was incomprehensible. The Belgian government waited until mid-March before taking action. That was a month and a half too late. If they had taken action earlier, the rate of spread would have been much lower and thousands of deaths from COVID-19 would have been avoided. And they don’t seem to learn from their mistakes. The response to each new wave of COVID-19 comes too late.

Although experts had been warning about it for years, the Belgian government was not prepared for a pandemic. At first it said that the masks were useless, because they were not (yet) available due to mismanagement. Then, suddenly, they became mandatory.

In September 2021 the measures were relaxed in Belgium with worse figures, while in the Netherlands they were tightened with better figures. How does one explain that? In Belgium seven health ministers have to agree in order to implement a new policy. At the same time, governors and mayors introduce stricter or more permissive rules and party presidents polish their image at the expense of public health.

When that distrust reaches the streets and social networks, the far right just has to stick the ball upside down. They attract to their side those who are legitimately disgruntled just by showing empathy with their distrust of the government. Their goal, of course, is not to demand more democracy for the voiceless. History teaches us why the goal of the far right is to hasten the formation of an authoritarian regime that will completely shut out these people and push to the extreme the exploitation of everything and everyone by the 1%.

The anti-COVID-19 measures in many European countries were and still are a huge chaos. But, in reality, the distrust is much deeper. In the previous big crisis, the banking crisis of 2008, it was also the citizens who paid the price. The banks that had speculated with our money got away with it and were saved. And we ordinary people paid the bill. It is obvious, and for good reason, there is such distrust in the government’s ability to manage a crisis.

And in Cuba?

As early as January 2020, almost two months before the politicians in Europe got into action, the Cuban government launched a national plan to combat the coronavirus. Massive information campaigns were launched in working-class neighborhoods and on television. There were no contradictory governments, no seven health ministers who had to agree, and no discussions about mandatory masks.

The government acted decisively and did everything possible to nip the virus in the bud. No easy promises saying that we were going to regain the ‘kingdom of freedom’ thanks to vaccines, no letting go of the reins too quickly, due to electoral motives or lack of political courage, but firm measures. Here are some examples. Tourism, the main source of income but also of contagion, was stopped immediately. Children from the age of six are obliged to wear masks. When it became clear that schools were also important foci of contagion, Cuba switched to home education, with very good support from school television, among other things.

“By properly informing the population about health risks, Cubans understand the importance of staying at home. They know how the disease is transmitted, and they take responsibility for their own health and that of their relatives and neighbors,” says Aissa Naranjo, a physician in Havana.

Health care in Cuba focuses mainly on prevention and is highly decentralized. Each neighborhood has its own polyclinic and there is a strong bond of trust between the local population and health personnel. Since March 2020 almost 30,000 ‘contact tracers’ have gone door to door, to the farthest corners of the island, to check each family to see if one of its members was infected. University students were mobilized to assist in this screening. In Belgium, the detection was carried out by anonymous people in call centers, which does not exactly inspire confidence.

In the meantime, everything was focused on the development of vaccines against the coronavirus. In March 2021, three vaccines were already in the testing phase. Cuba currently has five vaccines of its own, one of them for children as young as two years old.

The differences in COVID policies between Cuba and Belgium are also reflected in the figures. In Cuba there were 146 COVID-19 deaths at the end of 2020. In Belgium, with the same number of inhabitants, the figure was almost 20,000. That was before the Delta variant. Cuba did not arrive in time. Its own vaccines were only finished three months after the Delta variant began to proliferate. Rapid vaccination in Belgium, starting in late 2020, has significantly reduced the number of deaths caused by the Delta variant, at least in the early stages.

In Cuba the Delta variant actually arrived too early; there were no vaccines at the time. The peak of infection occurred in July. This caused many deaths and shook the health system. This precarious health situation added to the severe economic problems resulting from the U.S. economic blockade, loss of tourism and rising food prices. As a result, there was much discontent among the people. Through social networks, an attempt was made from the United States to stir up this discontent and channel it into protests. The attempt ended up failing.

Once the vaccination campaign began in Cuba, the results were spectacular. On September 20, at the beginning of the campaign, there were still more than 40,000 new infections and 69 deaths daily. Today there are around 60 new infections and one death per day. In Cuba, children from the age of two are also vaccinated. On December 2, 90% of Cubans had received their first dose. This is the second highest percentage in the world, after the United Arab Emirates, and the highest in Latin America. In Belgium we are at 75%.

Distrust of big pharma

Many unvaccinated people in Europe find it suspicious that the government provides vaccines free of charge. They have to pay more and more for other drugs. Health care costs patients more and more every year and now suddenly we all “have” to get vaccinated for free. Is there nothing behind it? Does it make you a conspiracy theorist if you ask this question?

People know that big pharma only looks at profits and does not always take people’s safety seriously. Between 1940 and 1980 millions of expectant mothers took DES (diethylstilbestrol) against miscarriages and in the 1960s they were prescribed Softenon against the dizziness of pregnancy. These decisions produced thousands of deformed babies. In the United States, Purdue Pharma, owned by the wealthy Sackler family, until recently sold the potent painkiller OxyContin, knowing full well that it is highly addictive.

Purdue is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and the addiction of millions. Fentanyl, invented by Paul Janssen of the Belgian pharmaceutical giant of the same name (now part of Johnson & Johnson), is also a highly addictive painkiller that was freely available in the United States and heavily promoted. Johnson&Johnson was convicted of liability in this case.

People also know that pharmaceutical companies are charging too high prices for their COVID-19 vaccines and are heavily subsidized by the government, but are allowed to keep billions in profits. When these same companies then say that another booster shot is needed, this understandably arouses suspicion, even if the need is scientifically correct.

What about Cuba?

There is no private pharmaceutical industry in Cuba. All vaccines against COVID-19 are manufactured by government-owned biomedical laboratories. Eighty percent of the vaccines used in the country’s vaccination programs are manufactured domestically. You won’t find outrageous prices or usurious profits there

From infancy, the entire population is vaccinated against a range of diseases, just as here in Europe. This is one of the main factors behind the very rapid increase in life expectancy in Cuba in recent decades. Life expectancy in Cuba is higher than in the United States and infant mortality is lower. In recent months it has been shown that vaccines are also very effective. So it is not surprising that any Cuban person not only trusts his or her national pharmaceutical companies, but is proud of them.

Distrust in science

Real science and pseudoscience are often used to advertise all sorts of things here in Europe: food supplements, perfect diapers, hair growth products, supersonic cell phones…. As a result science has lost much of its status for many people. Frequent research and large-scale frauds (think dieselgate) make people even more suspicious.

In addition, many people leave secondary or higher education without being able to understand statistics or their representation in articles. “There are as many vaccinated people as unvaccinated people in the hospital, aren’t there?” All this explains why large groups of people are attracted to obscure theories or at least want to take them seriously because they think “they” are trying to make us believe something. That “they” want to force us to comply with a number of things: COVID passport, vaccinations, etc. “They” is, then, an amalgam of politicians, experts and the media.

And in Cuba?

In Cuba people face professional publicity only very sporadically. Science reaches people through education -of high quality- and non-commercial media. Even before the first infection, it was explained to all Cubans on television what COVID-19 is, how the pandemic developed worldwide, what can be done about it and, consequently, what measures were to be taken.

The Cuban population knows that their scientists are working for the common good of their country. The population sees it almost every year, for example, in the preventive evacuations of towns and cities in hurricane paths, drawn by the best meteorologists in the world. It saw how HIV was quickly contained with a strong commitment to prevention, how dengue and Zika are treated in a scientific, efficient and transparent manner, resulting in a minimum number of victims.

Distrust in solidarity

Effective pandemic management presupposes solidarity. The majority of the population, who personally have little to fear from the disease, must show solidarity with minorities of (very) old and physically weak people. Vaccination is important for a normal man or woman, and also for children, to reduce the circulation of the virus in the community as soon as possible in favor of the weakest. Most people – also in Europe – consider that a sufficient reason to participate. This also applies to compliance with safety measures.

It is really surprising that there are not more people in Europe saying, “I am healthy and strong enough, I don’t need a vaccine, the rest has to do their own thing.” The whole commercial and neoliberal culture here reminds people on a daily basis of their duty to develop, to do better and better in life, i.e. to

become richer. The ideal is absolute autonomy, not to depend on others; much less on the ‘State’, otherwise one is a freeloader. The unions are then seen as the protectors of these ‘freeloaders’. The State must be degreased, social and health care must be cut back. This is not exactly a culture that fosters solidarity.

And in Cuba?

Cubans are not in a situation of competition or ‘every man for himself’. The Cuban population knows from experience that only together can they face the country’s great challenges. Overcoming problems together is what they are used to, unfortunately today more than ever. Helping neighbors, cleaning the neighborhood together, holding meetings and making decisions together in the workplace, etc., is their way of life.

Solidarity is part of their DNA. For decades they have been sending doctors, nurses and teachers to the rest of the world. A small country of eleven million inhabitants, with ten times less resources than Belgium, sent doctors to fight COVID as far away as Italy.

This attitude and way of life is another reason why there are few or no anti vaccine people in Cuba.`

https://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/214581

Source: Alainet, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English

Statement of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party of Russia (OKP) in connection with the 30th anniversary of the unconstitutional liquidation of the USSR in December 1991.

In December 1991, the largest state on the planet, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first ever socialist state of workers and peasants, disappeared from the political map of the world.

In the context of the general crisis of Gorbachev’s “perestroika” policy, few people paid attention to the blatant violation of all conceivable and inconceivable constitutional procedures during the “dissolution” of the united socialist homeland. In its swiftness, it resembled either the shameful flight from the sinking ship of the completely bankrupt political elite of the “perestroika-reformers” headed by President Gorbachev, or the finale of a carefully planned action designed to put an end to the history of Soviet socialism, which was played out like clockwork before the eyes of the disoriented and disorganized Soviet people.

There is no doubt that at the time of the proclamation of “perestroika,” Soviet society needed changes, but at every turn the rational renewal of the country on the basis of socialism was opposed by voluntarist innovations in the spirit of the convergence of the socialist and capitalist systems. Thus, instead of scientifically grounded improvement of the Soviet command-distribution planning system, experiments were imposed on society to introduce capitalist market mechanisms into the socialist economy with the orientation of the entire national economic complex of the country towards the priority of profit, and, consequently, the formation of a system of consumer relations. 

This, in turn, created fertile ground for manifestations of individual and collective egoism, the shadow economy, the social differentiation of Soviet society — shameful social phenomena that discredited Soviet socialism in the eyes of the working people. Obvious failures in the ideological sphere and the transformation of the ruling Communist Party of Soviet Union from the political vanguard of society into a bureaucratic mechanism of government led to the depoliticization of communists and non-party people, to people’s disbelief in the proclaimed slogans and ideals, and contributed to the growth of social apathy and cynicism.

Taken together, the above circumstances and phenomena contributed to the formation of conditions for internal counterrevolution, expanded its social base, thereby facilitating the subversive activities of the forces of international reaction and anti-communism against the USSR and the socialist bloc. The policy of “perestroika,” designed to eradicate these tendencies according to Gorbachev’s assurances, carried out without a proper systematic approach, by the empirical method of trial and error, quickly moved from the stage of renewal of socialism to its actual dismantling. The events of August 1991 removed the last barriers to the forces that openly advocated the elimination of the socialist system and the Soviet Union itself, which makes us speak not so much about the spontaneous disintegration of the system, but about completely controlled and clearly coordinated processes.

It is important to recall an extremely important circumstance, which proves in the most irrefutable way that the liquidation of the USSR was neither a historical accident, nor a natural consequence of the economic “bankruptcy of the system,” as both “systemic” and “non-systemic” liberals like to say today. At the time of the signing of the unconstitutional “Belovezh Accords” [Dec. 8, 1991] and the resignation of Soviet President Gorbachev, practically all the top political and military leaders of the USSR were in the “Matrosskaya Tishina” pre-trial detention center facing charges in the case of the so-called “State Emergency Committee.” [This refers to the failed August 1991 attempt to block the counterrevolution by administrative measures.] 

In their absence, the entire operational leadership of the largest state on the planet passed to the “Russian center” in the person of President of the RSFSR Yeltsin and the leaders of the “democratic” Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, which from the standpoint both of the the law and common sense was more like a creeping coup d’etat. The purpose of the latter was the final usurpation of the highest power in the RSFSR by the “group” of President Yeltsin, who by that time had entered into an open conspiracy with the national-separatist forces, which had seized key leadership posts in most of the union republics of the USSR.

No less strange and clearly contrary to common sense was the very justification by the president of the Soviet Union of his own decree to resign from his high powers: “Due to the current situation with the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.” This wording was voiced in Gorbachev’s address to the nation on Dec. 25, 1991, that is, exactly 17 days after the separatist “Belovezh” conspiracy between the heads of three subjects of the USSR [Russia, Ukraine and Belarus], as a result of which its participants announced the “termination” of the 1922 Treaty on the Formation of the USSR. And this despite the fact that the USSR was founded by at least four subjects, not three, and since the adoption of the first Constitution of the USSR in 1924, the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR ceased to be an independent legal document, becoming an integral part of the Basic Law of the Union State (that is, in the “Belovezh” putsch, a document that had no direct legal force for a long time was “terminated”).

But more importantly, the actions of the three “Belovezh” signatories grossly contradicted the results of the March 1991 referendum on the preservation of the USSR, in which 76.4% of citizens strongly supported the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. However, despite this, Gorbachev chose to “wash his hands” and not darken the celebration of the “victors” – on the afternoon of Dec. 25 (before Gorbachev’s announcement of resignation) at a meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, Yeltsin’s henchmen pushed through the decision to remove from the official name of Soviet Russia the reference to soviets, the socialist nature of its socio-political system, and in the evening, just 38 minutes (!) after Gorbachev’s statement, the state flag of the Soviet Union was hastily lowered from the main flagpole of the Kremlin, replaced by the “democratic” counterrevolutionary tricolor.

The Presidium of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party is convinced that such actions could not be the result of a historical “accident,” just as they were not historically inevitable, of which both the direct initiators and ordinary pogromists of the USSR are trying to convince us. The deliberate, primitive anti-Sovietism, which has long since set the teeth on edge, which even thirty years after the liquidation of Soviet socialism and the USSR regularly breaks through in the speeches of the main plenipotentiary representatives of the ruling political class in the country, best refutes any fabrications by opponents of the Soviet project about its alleged historical failure. 

In conditions when, according to most of the main development indicators – from the economy to culture to healthcare — the present “post-Soviet” Russia, as well as any other former republics of the Union, have not reached the level of the last year of the existence of the USSR, such fabrications of the current “effective managers” cannot be explained by anything other than a political inferiority complex. That is why their complex is now and then compensated for either by strictly dosed state anti-Sovietism and anti-communism, or – when it is politically expedient — by the cynical flirtation of representatives of the oligarchic regime with symbols of the great Soviet past.

The Presidium of the Central Committee of the OKP, noting the unconditional positive shift in public sentiment in Russia towards leftist ideas, the Soviet project and the USSR, at the same time strongly disagrees with the attempt to turn such symbols and ideas into harmless icons to comfort the exploited. We are convinced that just as the very creation of the Soviet Union was the result of a real correlation of social and class forces of a particular historical period, so its potential for revival will also be due solely to the real struggle for the socialist reorganization of reality, which will be waged by the working masses themselves, both in today’s Russia, and in any other now separated “post-Soviet” country.

The history of the destruction of Soviet statehood and the USSR, which ended exactly thirty years ago with the signing of the criminal “Belovezh Accords” and the no less criminal stance of President Gorbachev, is the clearest proof that one material force can be overturned only by a force similar to it, while law or constitution is nothing more than a reflection of the will of this or that ruling class in society. Exactly thirty years ago, in December 1991, such a force was on the side of the liquidators of the USSR and, as such, the subsequent denunciation (termination) of the “Belovezh” conspiracy, undertaken by the parliamentary opposition majority of the State Duma of the Russian Federation in March 1996, did not and could not change such an anti-socialist balance of forces in Russia or any other “post-Soviet” republic.

The era begun by the criminal demolition of the Soviet Union has been going on for three decades, and it can only be interrupted by a radical change in the balance of forces in modern Russian society. However, such a change is clearly not achieved by the mere “return” of Soviet passports or even “Soviet citizenship” alone. That is why the first step towards a real revival of the USSR is the return of property and power to the hands of the working majority in each of the states of the once united socialist space, the Sovietization and socialization of these states as a decisive condition for the new socialist integration of peoples.

The USSR is the future, but we need to fight for this future today!

Vladimir Lakeev
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party

Source: United Communist Party

Translated by Greg Butterfield

The absurdly misnamed “Democracy Summit”, hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden on 9-10 December, the real “non-democratic” character of which is analyzed below, is widely and rightly understood in China as part of the fact that the U.S. simultaneously launched not only an international geopolitical attack on China but also an ideological one.

China has nothing whatever to fear, and on the contrary a great deal to gain, from such an international discussion – due to the overwhelming achievements of China in improving the lives of its own people. The more the people of the world understand China’s extraordinary achievements in this the more they will want the same scale of improvement in the conditions of their people to be enjoyed by their own countries and therefore the more favorable they will be to China.

But in some sections of the media mistakes are made in replying to U.S. attacks on “democracy” and “human rights.” These mistakes consist of falsely accepting the U.S. framework of discussion on these issues. Therefore, it is important to clearly understand the entirely wrong basis of the U.S. claims on “human rights” and “democracy”. This, in turn, leads to analysis of the core of the most fundamental issues of the difference between socialism and “liberal” capitalism. Marx precisely became a socialist (founding Marxism!) through his criticism of the errors of liberal capitalism and his analysis of the real practical situation of life of human beings. This analysis provides the comprehensive framework for critique of all the errors of liberal capitalism and demonstration of the superiority for humanity of socialism – including China’s. Therefore, understanding of these issues is of very great practical importance, as well as theoretical clarity, in replying to false U.S. attacks on China.

The following article therefore deals both with key practical examples of the real bases of human rights and democracy and relates them to Marx’s epoch-making analysis – which provides the foundation for all real examination of the issues of human rights and democracy. It is an expanded version of a speech made on these issues to a conference on 2 December.

This article therefore deals with:

• What are the real differences regarding human rights and democracy between the U.S. and China?
• Why China’s position on human rights and democracy, in the real life of real human beings, is far superior to the U.S.?
• How Marx analysed the fundamental issues on these questions – and why his framework could be expanded from his own first analysis to all the most important issues of humanity’s life?
• What is the real character of the U.S. pseudo “summit on democracy”?

“Democracy” means the people rule – what are the practical implications of this?

The word democracy in European languages, derives from two Greek words “demos (people)” and “kratos (rule)”. So, “democracy” means literally “rule by the people”.

Democracy is presented as integrally linked to human rights, that is “people’s rights”. This is correct and will be used here. This reality shows that China’s framework and delivery on human rights is far superior to the “West’s”. But, contrary to this fundamental concept of “rule by the people” an attempt is made in the West, more accurately by capitalist countries, to claim that democracy is instead defined purely in terms of certain formal and official structures which they possess – for example Parliament, so called “division of powers” etc. This is false. The issue is about how much in reality “human rights” exist.

The position of women in China and India shows the fake U.S. definition of human rights

To illustrate the real issues involved in the issue of human rights and democracy let us start with an enormous practical example affecting almost one fifth of humanity – women’s position in China and India.

An Indian woman’s life expectancy is 71, in China it is 79.2 – a Chinese woman lives 8 years longer than an Indian woman.

In China female literacy is 95%, in India it is 65%.

The risk of a woman dying in childbirth is 8 times higher in India than in China.

In the real world, for the thinking of any normal human being, the real human rights of a Chinese woman are therefore far superior to those of an Indian woman (I say this with no pleasure at all, I would like the human rights of an Indian woman to improve to become the  equal of those of a Chinese woman).

Yet according to the U.S. concept of “democracy” and “human rights” the ridiculous claim is made that the rights of an Indian woman are superior to those of a Chinese woman – because an Indian woman lives in a “Parliamentary Republic.” What concept leads to such an obviously ridiculous conclusion regarding the life of real human beings?

Or take COVID. Less than 5,000 people in Mainland China have died from COVID. In the U.S. 778,000 people have died from COVID. But China’s population is more than four times that of the U.S.. If the same number of people per capita had died in China as in the U.S. there would be 3,390,000 Chinese people dead instead of less than 5,000. But the U.S. claims human rights and democracy are better in the U.S. than China! What type of absurd reasoning can try to justify such a conclusion which in violation of all the facts on the most fundamental issues of life and death?

Marx became a socialist through analysis of the errors of liberalism

The issues involved in this, go right back to the origins of socialism – which was developed precisely as a critique of the theory and limits of liberal/parliamentary democracy.

The work in which Marx became a socialist, making his transition from a liberal democrat, is his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right of 1843. Marx showed that the real role of the state was to defend the existing property relations – at that time in Germany these were approaching capitalist relations. This analysis has been fully factually confirmed by innumerable practical examples since that time. Every time that an attempt has been made on a peaceful basis to make the transition from capitalism to socialism, or even to come close to this, the capitalist state has intervened not in order to allow this transition to take place on democratic principles but, on the contrary, to overthrow democracy in order to preserve capitalism. The most infamous example of this internationally was the coup d’etat against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 but numerous other examples could be given – for example the Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), Honduras (2009), Bolivia (2019).

Having analysed the material role of the capitalist state then, the next year, Marx in his work On the Jewish Question, gave his classic analysis of the false ideology of the “liberal democratic” capitalist state. Marx demonstrated, via analysis of the position of Jews in Germany, the difference between the “official” and “formal” claims of liberal/parliamentary democracy and reality. He demonstrated that removal of formal and legal restrictions on Jews in Germany did not lead to their real equality. It is this analysis which directly relates to the difference between the real human rights of Chinese women and Indian women already considered – although Marx, dealing with an urgent political issue of his period, analysed it regarding the position of Jews in Germany.

Marx designated the difference between what he termed “political emancipation” and “human emancipation” – between purely formal equality and rights in politics and the fundamental inequality and lack of rights in the real world. This so classically sets out the reality of Western parliamentary democracy that it is worth quoting in detail – any other words would simply summarise an analysis that could not be put more clearly.

Marx put it regarding the difference between formal and real human freedom that in parliamentary/liberal democracy: “man liberates himself from a restriction… in an abstract and restricted manner”. This is while liberal/parliamentary democracy proclaimed “equality” this was a fiction in the real world in which human beings lived.

Marx put it regarding the purely formal statements of capitalist/parliamentary democracy: “The state abolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education, occupation, are non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without regard to these distinction, that every member of the nation is an equal participant in national sovereignty.” But in reality, none of these real distinctions was removed: “Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education, occupation, to act in their way – i.e., as private property, as education, as occupation, and to exert the influence of their special nature. Far from abolishing these real distinctions, the state only exists on the presupposition of their existence.”

Marx’s analysis of the difference between the real position of Jews in Germany and the false claims of liberal democracy

Therefore, Marx showed there was a complete distinction between the myths of liberal democracy and the reality of human beings life: In a classic passage, going to the core of the myths of liberal democracy: “Where the political state has attained its true development, man – not only in thought, in consciousness, but in reality, in life – leads a twofold life, a heavenly and an earthly life: life in the political community, in which he considers himself a communal being, and life in civil society”.

He went on: “The relation of the political state to civil society is just as spiritual as the relations of heaven to earth. The political state stands in the same opposition to civil society… in the same way as religion prevails over… the secular world… In his most immediate reality, in civil society, man is a secular being…. In the state, on the other hand… he is the imaginary member of an illusory sovereignty, is deprived of his real individual life and endowed with an unreal universality.”

Marx showed that there was a move towards a purely formal equality of Jews in German society, but this concealed the real existing inequality. Liberal/parliamentary democracy obscured this reality by defining “equality” and “democracy” in only a narrow artificial and formal way while ignoring the real inequalities, and the discriminations, that existed.

This situation, and Marx’s analysis of it, later, of course, culminated in one of the greatest crimes in human history – the development of German antisemitism into the Nazi holocaust.

This analysis of the position of the Jews in Germany provided a model for the analysis of the real situation in capitalism. It is exactly this which is shown by the difference of the position of women in China and India, or the difference in deaths from COVID.

The claim by Western capitalist theory is that women in India enjoy better human rights than women in China because of the existence of Parliamentary democracy. This precisely shows the difference between what Marx termed the “heavenly” rights, that is non-existent ones, and “earthly life” – the real one.

Obviously, the real human rights of a Chinese woman are far superior to those of an Indian woman – that is her real “earthly life”. But the theory of liberal democracy ridiculously claims that the human rights of an Indian woman are superior to those of a Chinese woman because of her “heavenly life” in a purely formal equality in Parliamentary Democracy – an equality which in reality does not exist.

In the theory of liberal democracy the world is “standing on its head”

In summary, in the theory of liberal democracy everything is “standing on it head”. The least important, a formal and in reality non-existent equality, is declared to be the most important while the “earthly life” is declared to be less important – precisely as the difference in real life conditions between a Chinese woman and an Indian woman. Or, in Marx’s analysis, the difference between the formal equality of Jews in Germany and their real life.

Socialism, and China, puts everything the right way up. It says that it is the most fundamental that a Chinese women should live 8 years longer, that she should be literate, that she should have a hugely lower risk of dying in childbirth. And then China and socialism starts from what system actually delivers this improvement in the real life of human beings. That is its conception of “rule by the people” and “human rights” is strictly practical.

China extends the same principle as applies to Chinese women to all aspects of society.

China has lifted 850 million people out of internationally defined poverty – that is more than 70% of all those who have been lifted out of poverty in the world.

China has raised itself from almost the world’s poorest country in 1949 to “moderate prosperity” by its national standards and to within two to three years of being a “high income” economy by World Bank standards.

China has produced in the “earthly life” of real human beings, the greatest improvement in the conditions of life of the greatest number of people in human history.

That is, China has a political system which is determined by real results, that is improvement in the real lives of people, not by formal processes.

Because it is a socialist country, China’s economy can be brought under “rule by the people” – which is excluded by the capitalist system of rule of the economy by private property.

Naturally the specific political form, which is secondary in the framework above, is determined by China’s history. As Xi Jinping put it, the person wearing the shoe knows whether it fits or not. China’s present political system based on the leading role of the CPC, with other political parties in alliance with the overall lead of the CPC, is specific to China. It does not propose it for any other country.

But what China has defined is the real improvement of the real conditions of humanity. That is what has been demonstrated by China’s history and real social and political development.

The farce of the so called “democracy summit”

Finally, so far, the analysis has been made of the false analysis of liberal democracy within the framework of the nation state. But, of course, the same analysis applies to international issues – showing even more clearly the farce of the claim that Biden has called on 9-10 December a ludicrously misnamed ‘Summit for Democracy’. On the contrary this is a meeting led by the most anti-democratic countries in the world in the international sphere.

Numerous facts show that U.S. administrations have a record of systematic violations of democracy in the international sphere. No other country approaches the U.S. in a record of invasion of other states, support of anti-democratic coups, and other forms of aggression against countries etc. It is sufficient to mention only the invasion of Iraq, the bombing of Libya, the coup against Allende, the decades long economic embargo against Cuba in defiance of almost unanimous votes in the UN, to see that the claim by the U.S. that its policies are motivated by “democracy” is quite false.

In reality these facts show that the only basis on which U.S. administrations act is support for countries which subordinate themselves to the U.S., including those that have no form of democracy whatever such as Saudi Arabia. U.S. aggression is carried out against countries which stand up for their national interests against the U.S. whatever their form of government. Thus, even countries which fully confirm to the (false) Western liberal concepts of democracy are excluded from the summit – such as Bolivia and Nicaragua.

The facts show that key countries joining this meeting have long histories of colonialism and were participants in anti-democratic actions outside international law and the framework of the United Nations such as the invasion of Iraq. As with the analysis of the real situation of women in China and India, or Marx’s analysis of the position of Jews in Germany, the ideological claims of the U.S. on “human rights” and “democracy” are to conceal the reality that the U.S., and its key allies, are the greatest practical international violators of the real rights of countries and peoples.

In short, no credibility can be given the claim that the purpose of this meeting is about “democracy”.  It is instead about attempts by the U.S. administration to draw false lines of divide to attempt to conceal its real policies.

Conclusion

China’s gigantic achievements since 1949 in improving the real lives of its people, the greatest in human history in such a time frame, exactly correspond to the improvement in the “earthly life”, that is the real life, of human beings, as opposed to their non-existent “heavenly life” – that is the false ideological claims of liberal capitalist democracy.  That is why China will win in a real international discussion on human rights and democracy. But to do so its media, both international and domestic, must not allow itself to be confused by and make concessions to fake Western liberal democratic concepts. It can be guided by one of the greatest examples of genius in human history – Marx’s demolition of the myths of liberal democracy and why, therefore, he became a socialist. This is not merely an historical tribute, it is the best way to deal with the current ideological offensives of the U.S. against the Chinese people and against the real interests of humanity.

Source: Learning from China

The Chinese version of this article was originally published at Guancha.cn.

Statement from the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Frank Chapman, Executive Director

Chicago’s Criminal Justice System has once again distinguished itself with the legal lynching of a Black Gay person, Jussie Smollett. The mostly white jury found Smollett guilty on five counts after nine hours of deliberation. He was acquitted on the sixth count of lying to a detective. This has been the most expensively prosecuted low grade felony case in Chicago history. And in addition to being an incredible waste of taxpayers’ dollars it was the greatest mockery of a trial I have ever seen.

In all the criminal trials where I have seen innocent Black people framed up by racist, corrupt Chicago police officers, prosecutors and judges I have never seen anything like this, where prosecutors so fabricate evidence with lying witnesses and video tapes of Smollett driving around where he lives. The prosecutors’ theory is that Smollett perpetrated a hate crime against himself. The police and press presumed Smollett guilty two years before this trial when they allowed former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson to try this case at press conferences.

The evidence in this case was not circumstantial but contrived. Contrived and presented by the prosecutors with an unspeakable degree of racist arrogance.

Judge Linn openly sided with the prosecution throughout the trial and the media was silent. The media was as they tend to always be joint partners in this dehumanizing attack against Jussie Smollett, a Black gay man who has also been a warrior for justice for Black people.

Finally let us say it loud and clear. This case has been used by the powers that be in this City to attack States Attorney Kim Foxx and our movement. They have tried to trivialize the very real cries for justice against a system that is blatantly racist and homophobic. This is unacceptable. We will fight back, and we will win.

Earlier, Frank Chapman had posted on Facebook:

I sat in this trial from Monday, Nov. 6, to Wednesday, Dec. 8, and all I saw was prosecutors and lying witnesses presenting fabricated evidence to back up their lies. The evidence was not circumstantial but contrived and presented to a mostly white jury with one Black person on it, and the prosecutors presented their case with an unspeakable degree of racist and homophobic arrogance. With one Black person on the jury and a Judge openly hostile to the defense lawyers we are not surprised by the verdict of guilty.

From the very beginning, two years ago, this case has been used as a political football against States Attorney Kim Foxx and our movement against police crimes in this city. This is unacceptable. Jussie Smollett has always maintained his innocence and we believe him. We stand with the Smollett family whom we have known for decades to be warriors for justice. Justice for Jussie Smollett!!!

The 1,400 workers on strike against Kellogg’s since Oct. 5 are fighting for all workers. Members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) are battling the company’s two-tier system of wages and benefits.

The cereal killers who run Kellogg’s don’t believe in equal pay for equal work. Newly hired workers ― called “transitional employees” by the company ― are paid around $12 dollars less per hour than “regular” full-time workers but have to pay more for health insurance. Forget about pensions.

Kellogg’s forced workers to accept two-tier in 2015 under threat of closing two of its cereal plants, including the one in Memphis, Tennessee. The year before, management illegally locked out workers in the city where Dr. King was assassinated.

Lower paid transitional workers now account for 30 percent of the workforce. Kellogg’s wants to be able to increase their number while still denying them retirement benefits.

Unequal wages for the same work harms solidarity between workers while Kellogg’s ran to the bank with $1.76 billion in profit last year. It’s to the credit of workers with more seniority and higher pay that they voted down Kellogg’s contract proposal that would continue this rotten inequality.

Among them was Marvin Rush, an electrician and member of BCTGM Local 252G in Memphis who spoke to Jason Kerzinski of the “Progressive” magazine. “We are out here fighting against the two-wage system,”‘ said Rush, “and for the next generation of workers to have the same pay and benefits.” 

Kellogg’s doesn’t believe in an 8-hour work day and a 40-hour work week either. Forced overtime is a rule, with many union members working 72-to-84-hour work weeks.

“The worst is when you work a 7-to-7 and they tell you to come back at 3 a.m. on a short turnaround,” said Omaha BCTGM Local 50G president Daniel Osborn in an interview with Stephen Rodrick at Rolling Stone.“You work 20, 30 days in a row and you don’t know where work and your life ends and begins.”

In the runup to the strike Kellogg’s stopped hiring workers to replace those that retired or quit. According to Osborn there were “times during Covid when we were 100 workers under what we should have.”

Many union members think Kellogg’s did this to reduce the number of workers picketing to prevent scabs and strikebreakers from entering the plant. 

Thank you Venezuela!

The workers at Kellogg’s feed millions. The cornflake capitalists showed how much they appreciate these essential workers by announcing they’re hiring 1,400 strikebreakers to smash the union.

When Kellogg’s placed ads on social media for “replacement workers,” union supporters across the country flooded the company with phony résumés that gummed up recruitment.

Workers are on strike in Battle Creek, Michigan; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Memphis, Tennessee and Omaha, Nebraska. They’re engaged in a David vs. Goliath struggle.

The 1,400 union members at these four plants are pitted against a corporation with worldwide sales of $13.8 billion. Kellogg’s has 46 manufacturing facilities in 19 countries on six continents.

With inflation soaring by 6.8%, Kellogg’s offered only 3% annual wage increases. Meanwhile Kellogg’s CEO Steven Cahillane‘s pay package is $11,663,832. That’s 279 times the typical salary of workers. 

President Biden said that he was “deeply troubled” by Kellogg’s attempted recruitment of strikebreaking mercenaries. Talk is cheap Mr. President.

As the commander in chief of the armed forces, Biden could order the Pentagon to stop purchasing Kellogg’s cereals and snack products.

Contrast President Biden’s words with the actions of President Nicolás Maduro Moros of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. President Maduro supports the workers who took over the Kellogg’s plant in Maracay City in May after they were locked out over a weekend. Milton Torres, a longtime worker, is the new factory president.

As FightBack! News reported, the workers now call the plant “Socialist Kellogg’s” and are continuing to help feed people in Venezuela. “The basic principles of our socialist enterprise are to dignify the work of our working class, increase the levels of production, guarantee that the equipment is highly maintained, produce good quality products, in a fair price and to be a self-sustainable company to contribute to the economic development of the country,” said the plant’s union president Orlando Contreras. 

Boycott Kellogg’s!

Just as these strikers are fighting for all poor and working people, so is the company’s strikebreaking being carried out for the billionaires and banksters.

Wall Street wants the workers defeated and humiliated. That’s the answer of the one percent to millions of workers who want union protection, union wages, union health benefits and union pensions.

In 1887, the Haymarket Martyrs ― labor leaders George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons and August Spies ― were hanged in Chicago for demanding an eight hour work day. It’s outrageous that over 130 years later, workers are forced to work 72 and 84 hour weeks.

Compulsory overtime is not only dangerous and life-draining. It also prevents the hiring of young workers.

The few hundred strikers at each of the four cereal plants are not only up against Kellogg’s. They’re up against all the super yacht and private jet owners.

The strikers need our support. Don’t buy scab cereals and other Kellogg’s products. Victory to the workers!

Photos from the picket line in Memphis by Jason Kerzinski